Air Over Cedar!

After nearly 5 air-time-less months for me, the drought was finally broken today! The forecast called for strong southerly pre-frontal winds statewide today - and they were definitely red-flag honkin! This resulted in the warmest day of the year, with temps in the upper 70's. After such a long, hard, snowy cold winter (and spring), it was long overdue.

Cody & I figured that Short Divide was probably blown-out, so we decided to check out "Three Hill". I had one great flight from there last November:(http://mattsbigadventure.blogspot.com/2007/11/three-hill-high.html) I was anxious to try this launch out again, and with the higher winds aloft and in the valleys, it was our best bet because it is a low, 350' launch on a small southwest facing ridge.

Conditions on launch at about 3:30 pm were a steady 25 mph, with gusts building up to 38 mph! Since we would have to carry the gliders up the hill, and conditions were still too strong to launch, Cody opted to not risk his newly repaired trick-knee on the short, steep climb. I decided to haul my glider up to launch, with the hope that conditions would mellow after a couple of hours.

I set up behind a lone juniper tree, and Cody and I then talked HG while hang-waiting on the wind. Finally by about 5:40 conditions had improved to a steady 23 mph, with gusts only up to 28. I called Keri & the boys, who were able to watch me launch and fly from our backyard with binoculars! Cody assisted as I walked out to launch, where I paused only long enough to get wings neutral and level. Cody later told me that my launch looked great - it was immediately after launch that I gave him cause for concern.

Because my bulky glider bag stuffed into my harness had shifted all the way down to the "boot", I couldn't get a foot-hold to prone out in my cocoon harness. Although I knew that I was in control, the moderately banked oscillations probably did not look too good from the ground. On the third attempt I managed to prone out, and then continued the flight without incident. In retrospect, I probably should have just flown a bit further away from the hill on the uprights before re-attempting to prone out.

By now the sky was a bit overcast, so any thermal activity was almost imperceptible. The air was smooth and not too strong as I soared the small bowl near launch. I crossed a small canyon to a lower ridge in front of launch where I was able to climb to 300' over launch, so I pointed downwind, soon arriving on the face of Cedar Mountain. I climbed over the top of Cedar (about 500' above launch) and eventually topped out about 900' over launch (6,500'),

which was about 2,000' above the valley floor.

From here the view of the snow covered mountains was breathtaking.

I attempted to drift back and climb the higher mountain range beyond, but the lack of thermal activity did not allow it. So I relaxed, took some pictures,

waved at the dirt-bikers...

and dog-walkers on Cedar Mountain, and just enjoyed the long-overdue airtime.

I played follow the leader with a red-tailed hawk, and soon found the lift to become a bit sketchy and elusive. So I pointed south, and came in a couple hundred over the LZ as Cody kicked up a little dust to give me a wind indicator.

I turned onto final with plenty of speed as I descended through a pronounced wind gradient. I sort-of flared a bit too early, but a slight breeze allowed me to make a respectable, no-whack landing - almost making up for my less-than-stellar launch ;-) *(Thanks for the video, Cody!)

Airtime: 1 hour 15 minutes!